“ON STYLE JUNE 18, 2009 Making Fashion Fit the Form, for a Change Women of a Certain Shape Take Up the Cause for Clothes That Take Curves Into AccountBy CHRISTINA BINKLEY Article Comments (21) more in Fashion »Email Printer Friendly Share: Yahoo Buzz ↓ More facebook MySpace LinkedIn Digg del.icio.us NewsVine StumbleUpon Mixx Save This ↓ More Text (See Corrections & Amplifications item below.) When Alexandra Schulman, editor of British Vogue, last week sent a letter to designers including Karl Lagerfeld, John Galliano, Prada and Versace, asking them to make larger clothes for fashion shoots, she touched on an issue of increasing concern to many consumers. In the letter, which caused a sensation in clubby London fashion circles, Ms. Schulman says she wants to be able to hire slightly larger models so she can stop asking photo editors to hide super-skinny models' protruding bones. Many ordinary women want the fashion world to make larger clothes, too. Stores are filled to overflowing with trendy, young fashions designed for pin-thin bodies. But women larger than size 8 or 10 complain it's difficult to find fashionable apparel. View Full Image Michal Czerwonka for The Wall Street Journal Cookie Johnson (top) works with designer Joie Rucker on her new line of jeans. What's more -- at a time when clothes are languishing on the racks -- many larger women say they'd buy more if they could find clothing that fits well. Christine Kelley, a Berkeley, Calif., human-resources manager, says she is looking for a "modern-looking longish blazer that won't go out of style next season and hides a few extra pounds." Dinah Shields, a size-14 resident of Laguna Beach, Calif., says she wants fashionable clothes she can wear to her office, but it's "slim pickings." Pat Anthony, a "young 66-year-old" in Boca Raton, Fla., says she has a hard time finding formal wear with sleeves that doesn't look like the "grandmother of the bride." One group of entrepreneurs is trying to tap into this longing for clothes that fit with a new line of jeans. Cookie Johnson, wife of basketball legend Magic Johnson, says she has struggled for years to fit what she calls her "healthy size 8" frame into ill-fitting jeans. Initially, her solution was to cover up the pinched or protruding parts with a long tunic. "You get to the point where you think it's you -- you think, I shouldn't have eaten that extra cracker," says Ms. Johnson. But then, she decided to take matters further, designing her own denim jeans for curvy women. By curvy, I do not mean obese, unless you think Marilyn Monroe was fat. Women of a certain shape, it seems, have been forgotten. "The correct word is ignored," says Kathleen Carpenter, a 60-year-old Chicagoan who says she would spend more on apparel if so many choices didn't range from "ridiculous to nun-like." View Full Image Michal Czerwonka for The Wall Street Journal Ms. Johnson's jeans are cut to fit curvier women. "It's a huge issue," says Charla Krupp, a stylist and author of "How Not to Look Old." "These people have money and they have no place to spend it." Ms. Krupp is working on a second book on a topic she describes as "fashion for people who aren't perfect." Retailers often argue that larger women don't buy as many clothes as thinner women. Ray Lingao, vice president of sales for trendy Revolve Clothing, says that half of the jeans Revolve sells are sizes 26 and 28, which translate to 6 and 8, respectively. "I think it's just not our customer," he said of curvy women. But as we chatted, Mr. Lingao concluded that the problem might be that the "premium" jeans Revolve carries aren't cut for fleshier women. During the design process, most apparel is cut on a thin "fit model," and inches are added to the pattern to get to larger sizes. This process can leave larger sizes cut too large at the torso, too tight at the bust and hips, and long enough for an amazon. "The real case could be that for larger sizes, they're not using the right fit models," Mr. Lingao says. Ms. Johnson is calling her new line CJ by Cookie Johnson. Her business partner in the venture is the last guy you'd expect to bother with fit models who aren't thinner than svelte: Michael Glasser, founder of Seven For All Mankind, Citizens of Humanity, and Rich & Skinny jeans. When I asked Mr. Glasser why he and so many designers and retailers create so much clothing to fit young, thin women, he threw back his head and guffawed, "Because they're hot!" Seven and Citizens helped jump-start a then-moribund denim market, creating a frenzy for $200-plus jeans. These days, premium-denim sales have flattened, and the market is rife with rivals. "I heard Cookie's frustration and it hit me -- I can do this again," Mr. Glasser said. "CJ will be bigger than Seven, because they have more people to sell to than Seven, and they have a bigger slice of the pie," he says. In most department stores, he says, departments that cater to bigger women are as unappetizing as denim departments were when he launched Seven. I tried out two pairs of the CJ jeans, which are priced between $140 and $200. That's not cheap, but it's the norm for premium denim. The size 28 fit my thighs without forcing me to go up to a size that would leave the waist too big, and they were cut stylishly below the belly button, but not so low that it squeezed out an unwelcome "muffin top." I've gotten compliments on them, even from someone who designs clothes. Earlier this year, Nordstrom tested the line in a few markets, then expanded to half its stores, and recently opted to carry the new line in all 112 Nordstrom stores. "Customers are responding really, really well," says Nordstrom spokeswoman Pamela Perret. She calls the line "a unique product," because "it has all the styling and hallmarks of premium denim -- interesting washes, details and stitching -- but it's cut to fit a curvy woman's body." Find me at christina.binkley@wsj.com, at Twitter.com/BinkleyOnStyle and, for subscribers only, at WSJ.com/Community. Corrections & Amplifications Cookie Johnson's new line of denim jeans is called Cj by Cookie Johnson. This column incorrectly referred to the brand as CJ by Cookie. Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page D7 Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com More In Fashion Email Printer Friendly Order Reprints Share: Yahoo! 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